Fantastical conversations with the other in the self: Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) and her Peter Wimsey as Animus

Dorothy L. Sayers created in her fictional character Lord Peter Wimsey a “contrasexual” figure in her own imagination, with whom she carried on an extended dialogue over many years. C.G. Jung's concept of the contrasexual archetype, the anima (in men) or the animus (in women), can provide a very useful tool for investigating the presence of this transgendered voice within the self. Specifically in relation to Sayers and her Wimsey, Jung's theory can uncover the successful conversion of a potentially “bad animus” into a positive one, or, in other words, Sayers's successful creation in herself of her own “masculine” voice to replace the harmful voice of the patriarchy. Not unlike Hélène Cixous's concept of the “other bisexuality,” the contrasexual element in Sayers provides a model too for her readers to “speak woman” in a full or rounded way

PRODUCTION CONTRACTS, RISK SHIFTING, AND RELATIVE PERFORMANCE PAYMENTS IN THE PORK INDUSTRY

Actual performance records of production contract farmers are used to assess the extent to which contract production reduces the risk borne by pork producers. Comparisons of contracting relative to independent market production reveal that farmers who enter into production contracts based on absolute performance measures reduce risks associated with variable income. Weak evidence is found that relative performance contracts, similar to those used in the broiler chicken industry, further reduce income variability. The effectiveness of such relative performance contracts will rely on several factors; among these are increased contract production and a more uniform pork production and processing system.Absolute performance payment, Income variability, Pork industry, Production contracts, Relative performance payment, Risk shifting, Livestock Production/Industries,

NAVIGATING PRODUCTION CONTRACT ARRANGEMENTS

This paper is targeted for producers who are interested in learning the basics about pork production contracts. It discusses such things as what a production contract is, how they work and presents a set of questions to evaluate before signing a contract.Farm Management,

What role for qualitative methods in randomized experiments?

The vibrant debate on randomized experiments within international development has been slow to accept a role for qualitative methods within research designs. Whilst there are examples of how „field visits? or descriptive analyses of context can play a complementary, but secondary, role to quantitative methods, little attention has been paid to the possibility of randomized experiments that allow a primary role to qualitative methods. This paper assesses whether a range of qualitative methods compromise the internal and external validity criteria of randomized experiments. It suggests that life history interviews have advantages over other qualitative methods, and offers one alternative to the conventional survey tool.

What can a participatory approach to evaluation contribute to the field of integrated care?

© 2017 BMJ Publishing Group. All rights reserved. Better integration of care within the health sector and between health and social care is seen in many countries as an essential way of addressing the enduring problems of dwindling resources, changing demographics and unacceptable variation in quality of care. Current research evidence about the effectiveness of integration efforts supports neither the enthusiasm of those promoting and designing integrated care programmes nor the growing efforts of practitioners attempting to integrate care on the ground. In this paper we present a methodological approach, based on the principles of participatory research, that attempts to address this challenge. Participatory approaches are characterised by a desire to use social science methods to solve practical problems and a commitment on the part of researchers to substantive and sustained collaboration with relevant stakeholders. We describe how we applied an emerging practical model of participatory research, the researcher-in-residence model, to evaluate a large-scale integrated care programme in the UK. We propose that the approach added value to the programme in a number of ways: by engaging stakeholders in using established evidence and with the benefits of rigorously evaluating their work, by providing insights for local stakeholders that they were either not familiar with or had not fully considered in relation to the development and implementation of the programme and by challenging established mindsets and norms. While there is still much to learn about the benefits and challenges of applying participatory approaches in the health sector, we demonstrate how using such approaches have the potential to help practitioners integrate care more effectively in their daily practice and help progress the academic study of integrated care

Reading the individual: the ethics of narration in the works of W. G. Sebald as an example for comparative literature

The discussion is situated largely in the field of Comparative Literature and World Literature, in Damrosch’s sense of literature read beyond its own borders, with specific reference to the German exilic writer W. G. Sebald; but the issues raised concern the wider and more urgent sense of a crisis in the Humanities, not only in the UK but around the globe. The questions addressed here concern the possibility of reading or understanding an ‘other’, whether by that one means an individual or, by extrapolation, a whole culture or society for whom the named individual is taken as a representative; the argument is pursued first in the context of modern languages and literatures departments under the threat of extinction in the English-speaking world, and then in the more particular context of teaching women’s writing (or by extension any other ‘marginal’ writing) in such departments. However, the problems inherent in the attempt to ‘read the other’ are much more general—indeed universal. A non-Western, if not precisely post-colonial, context incites an acknowledgement of the seductiveness of self/other binary concepts, especially for those cultures which may be said not to have the same tradition of individualism and selfhood. Sebald provides the turning point: the Western European writer who depicts the failure of selfhood so dramatically that he may paradoxically inspire a model of moving beyond concepts of mutual alienation that seem to preclude empathy

Task-switch costs subsequent to cue-only trials

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Fiona Carr, Carmen Horne, and Brigitta Toth for assistance with data collection. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Funding information The authors would like to thank the School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, for contributing funding for participant payments.Peer reviewedPostprin